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WFofR
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Posted: Monday, February 14, 2000
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As a small-to-medium size business competing in the rapidly evolving media market place, national media-planning and buying service WFofR, Inc. continuously strives to reduce costs and enhance client services to build its competitive advantage. To justify the move to the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 platform, WFofR used a Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) analysis, conducted by Halifax Corporation and verified by the Giga Information Group, to determine business value. Results of the REJ analysis demonstrate that upgrading to the Windows 2000 platform can help reduce WFofR’s administrative cost, increase productivity by 1 percent, and open the door to gaining new business. The REJ analysis suggests a positive return on investment (ROI) of 183 percent over three years, which with potential benefits could reach over 430 percent.
Customer Profiles
WFofR, Inc., based in Richmond, Virginia, has 40 employees and reported billings of $200 million in 1998. It is among the largest media-planning and buying services in the United States.
Executive Summary
With the rapid expansion in the number of media choices, planning and buying TV advertising time has become a very complex and competitive business. WFofR, Inc., with a staff of 40, handles $200 million in reported media dollars. As a small-to-medium size enterprise, it rates high quality service, productivity, and cost control as critical to its success. As a result, the company constantly explores new ways to enhance services to clients and partners, shorten cycle times, and reduce its operating costs. The company expects that the Windows 2000 operating system can play a major role in achieving those goals.
"Our goals are qualitative as well as quantitative," says WFofR President Jeff Jones. "We certainly have specific numbers we want to hit in revenue and income growth. But we also focus on continuing to create a very dynamic, creative environment for our employees. This REJ study is helping us think about our business in totally new ways and use information technologies in innovative ways to achieve our business goals. From what we’ve seen so far, the time we’ll save and the new Internet capabilities we’ll gain with the Windows 2000 platform will be major factors in achieving and exceeding those objectives."
Results of the REJ analysis, conducted by Halifax Corporation and validated by the Giga Information Group, indicate that WFofR’s implementation of Windows 2000 Professional on the desktop and Windows 2000 Server on the network can potentially pay for itself in the first year in saved administration time and increased productivity. Both of those factors can also enable the business to grow significantly without adding information-technology (IT) staff.
Innovative Technologies in Windows 2000 Help WFofR Achieve Business Goals
To stay profitable, the bulk of WFofR’s resources must be dedicated to planning and buying media time, working with clients, and analyzing and reporting on the performance of those buys. The implementation of the Windows 2000 platform supports that business model by reducing administrative time and providing features that help increase productivity and provide new opportunities to build more efficient processes.
After pilot testing Windows 2000 Professional on 10 desktops, Halifax migrated WFofR’s remaining 33 desktop computers in Q1 2000. Halifax used existing personal computers (PC) and simply added memory upgrades to enhance performance. Five additional workstations were below the recommended minimum free disk space and were upgraded to install Windows 2000 Professional. This allowed WFofR to move the whole organization to the same desktop platform at the same time.
Business Value |
Windows 2000 Benefit |
Helps to lock-in market buys early to take advantage of lower media costs |
Improving information flow between traveling buyers and account executives helps to increase efficiency. |
Minimizes the cycle time required to process media tracking |
Offline Folders and mobile computing support help workers stay productive while away from the office or during a server outage. |
Improves collaboration and enhances client service. |
Built-in Internet technologies that provide secure access to valuable information through the Web create competitive advantages. |
Ensures availability of IT infrastructure |
The robust stability of Windows 2000 can improve the availability of systems and network resources. |
Converts IT staff into knowledge workers |
Offloading repetitive tasks enables knowledge workers to focus more time on developing innovative solutions. |
The REJ study projects that implementing the Windows 2000 operating system will help WFofR reduce its total cost of owning distributed computing technologies generate cost savings in excess of 100 percent of the initial investment. At the same time, the increased reliability and numerous new productivity features in Windows 2000 are projected to boost productivity for desktop, mobile, and administrative staff. Based on those results, implementing Windows 2000 suggests a positive return on investment of 183 percent over three years.
"We expected the migration to the Windows 2000 platform to produce a significant savings in administrative time and an increase in productivity, but the dramatic return on investment projected by the REJ study indicates that it effectively will pay for itself in the first year," says WFofR Vice President and CIO Roger Goad. "The money and time we save with Windows 2000 will enable us to focus on taking advantage of the Web technologies to work with our partners and clients more efficiently."
WFofR Buys Time with the Productivity Features of Windows 2000
Cost-effective media buying is a high-volume, yet precise, business. Recognizing the increasing fragmentation of TV audiences, WFofR developed its own unique buying system that seeks to reach as many viewers as possible by buying all day-parts on as many stations as possible in each market. By purchasing impressions, rather than programs, WFofR media buyers can cover up to 95 percent of the United States market for its clients at half the cost of network TV.
Achieving that kind of coverage at such a competitive rate requires careful planning, informed negotiating, and dedicated trafficking. Validating the results requires powerful tracking, reporting, and analysis tools. Technologies that can help make those tools easier, more reliable, and more efficient to use can help to improve employee productivity and deliver significant financial benefits to WFofR.
The WFofR REJ analysis identifies several key technologies in Windows 2000 Professional that enable knowledge workers to perform their tasks more efficiently and provide them with secure, reliable access to resources from their laptops. These technologies include:
 | Offline Folders—Traveling media buyers and account executives can work offline on their key data and automatically synchronize any changes made to their work on the network the next time they are connected. This feature can also enable the staff to keep working in the event they lose network connectivity. |
| Improved interface—Improvements in the Help system, error messages, and personalized menus can help users solve problems faster and more efficiently when navigating on the desktop, ultimately, reducing the IT support load. |
| Mobile computer support—Easy configuration of dial-up networking, through the use of Connection Manager, enables users to connect to a secure, corporate virtual private network (VPN) and to work as efficiently when they are remote as when they are in the office. |
Supports Company Growth Without Increasing IT Staff
In addition to large gains in user productivity, a wealth of new management functionality in Windows 2000 Server is projected to help WFofR reduce the cost of doing business in several ways. Several new features in Windows 2000 Server can help reduce administration and support time, converting WFofR’s IT staff from task workers to knowledge workers. That in turn frees the IT staff to pursue more strategic initiatives and develop new ways to use the technology to their competitive advantage. These timesaving administrative features include:
| Delegation of user administration—Along with the ability to tightly manage the desktop, this capability, available in the Active DirectoryTM service, will enable senior-level systems analysts to delegate repetitive tasks, such as changing user passwords, so they can focus on creating innovative solutions. |
| Centralized application administration—The IntelliMirrorTM management technologies enable IT staff to centrally distribute and configure applications, updates, and any applicable service packs. This allows the IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives rather than on day-to-day application maintenance. |
| Windows File Protection and self-healing applications—Windows 2000 Professional can keep the system up and running by automatically repairing itself or Windows 2000-certified applications as needed. This can reduce the number of end-user calls to the support desk. |
| Terminal Services Remote Management—This enables the system administrator to configure and manage WFofR’s servers from one central location or troubleshoot the network from home if a problem arises outside of business hours, thus reducing response time. |
Windows 2000 Feature |
Hours reduced per year |
Terminal Services Remote Management |
28 hours |
Delegation of user administration |
50 hours |
Centralized application administration and update distribution |
200 hours |
Self-healing applications |
25 hours |
"The combined effect is that Windows 2000 Server can help to minimize the resources WFofR needs to devote to system administration and can also help reduce outsourced support costs," explains Matt McLean, Halifax system consultant. "Their IT people can devote more time to developing new ways to use the technology to their competitive advantage. It provides great opportunities for Microsoft Solution Providers as well. I can provide round-the-clock support for a client’s environment just by using Terminal Server from my house."
Reliability Enhances Collaboration and Productivity
As WFofR begins to take further advantage of the Web to collaborate with its partners and clients, the reliability, security, and easy connectivity in Windows 2000 can provide a solid foundation for Web-based solutions that enhance internal collaboration, streamline processes, and add more value to the services provided.
WFofR media buyers travel to the top 100 TV markets twice a year to meet with local TV station management and negotiate rates. The ability to work offline and to connect securely to the corporate network over a VPN will enable WFofR account executives and media buyers to work smarter and easier, allowing them to drive the business, locking in media buys early to help secure better rates for their clients.
"The mobility features and productivity improvement to our laptop systems will enable the Account Services department to manage an additional $300,000 in billings," observes Steve Thompson, Vice President of Account Services. "Without Windows 2000 we would have to pay $10,000 in employee costs to achieve the same results. It looks like we should be able to deploy Windows 2000 in our department for under $5,000."
With thousands of media contracts in process at all times, efficient weekly contract maintenance is an important issue. WFofR plans to make contract changes and performance reports accessible to local TV stations through a secure Web site, which will eliminate many manual procedures and reduce cycle times, thus increasing the number of contracts managed per media buyer.
"The productivity features in Windows 2000 will enable our department to manage more than $400,000 in additional billings without having to hire additional staff," explains VP Media Buying Supervisor Barbara Russell. "Getting the same results by hiring the equivalent labor would cost us roughly $15,000. Since we can deploy Windows 2000 in our department for about $9,000, there’s an obvious benefit to us."
One major axiom of any client-service business is that the best source of new business is existing clients. So while WFofR aggressively pursues new business opportunities, it works very hard to exceed the expectations of its existing clients. It plans to use the Internet capabilities in Windows 2000 Server to provide customized services for its clients, including immediate access to customized reports verifying that goals are being met. This will help increase client satisfaction and client retention.
"In the long term, Windows 2000 provides a secure and robust infrastructure to support our e-commerce objectives," notes Goad. "Taking advantage of the Internet to enhance our collaboration with partners and clients can create competitive advantages as well as tremendous opportunities for new business."
Windows 2000 Sees Return on Investment Within First Month
With the guidance and expertise of Halifax for both planning and deployment, WFofR deployed Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional throughout the organization by the end of January 2000. Halifax installed Windows 2000 Professional on 33 WFofR personal computers (PC) over a weekend so that the users experienced virtually no downtime. The existing server was upgraded from the Windows NT Server 4.0 operating system to Windows 2000 over the weekend, as well, and required no additional modification to the hardware.
Within days of the upgrade to Windows 2000, WFofR began to see some of the projected savings in administration costs. In one example, WFofR encountered a problem with the Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service and called Matt McLean at Halifax. "Instead of having to drive a half hour to fix it, I could dial into their RAS server, hit Terminal Services, and fix the problem remotely over a 28.8K modem," explains McLean. "Eliminating the travel time saved WFofR at least an hour of labor and allowed me to spend the saved time driving business in other ways."
Software and Services
Terminal Services
Delegation of administration authority
Offline Folders
Mobile user support
IntelliMirrorTM management technologies
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Resource Centre at (800) 563-9048. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information over the World Wide Web, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000
http://www.microsoft.com/tco
http://www.Wfofr.com/
http://www.hxcorp.com/
http://www.gigaweb.com
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Last Updated: Thursday, May 18, 2000
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